I have a piece of test equipment that needs to stay underwater for days. Normally I would use or make a waterproof case with a lid and a gasket.
Instead, I’m wondering if I could print a box, pause the print just before the top face, put the device inside and then print the top face over it. No openings, no nothing, and the device works by induction so it doesn’t need to physically connect to anything.
But this would only work if 3D-printed PLA walls are really waterproof. After all, 3D-printed features are kind of a bunch of wires more or less loosely attached to each other, so I wouldn’t be surprised if water could leak through under pressure.
Before I spend any time assessing this myself, has anybody tried printing waterproof enclosures?
From experience printing a bunch of different planters with varying settings and printers, without post-processing/sealing the answer is “not reliably”. You can increase your chances by using many perimeters and surface layers, high heat, and thicc extrusions, but you are still just stacking swiss cheese slices on top of each other hoping the holes don’t line up.
With days submerged, even the tiniest of defects means water can and will seep in.
Have you tried https://github.com/TengerTechnologies/Bricklayers yet?
I think this might improve watertightness considerably as in the tests it increased layer adhesion/strength by quite a lot.